ROME – A pope’s Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi blessing, meaning “to the city and the world,” is generally understood to be one of his premier foreign policy statements of the year, a sort of 365-degree review of the global situation.
Which issues and hotspots a pontiff chooses to highlight, therefore – and, equally, which he chooses to omit – are understood to be an X-ray of the Vatican’s current diplomatic and geopolitical agenda.
With that in mind, what should be the main take-aways from Pope Francis’s latest Urbi et Orbi remarks, delivered today in St. Peter’s Square entirely in his own voice, despite recent struggles with breathing and speaking related to bronchitis, and done with seeming energy and emphasis?
